Can't copy, burn iphoto backup. Error -50???

[bigpixels]

I was lazy. I let 100 gigs of photos pile up on a firewire drive. Now the drive is noisy and I think it is headed for failure.
When I try to copy it to another drive, it invariable says "could not complete- error -50"
Then I use disk utility to check the drives. It repairs the source drive and other firewire drives check out OK.

Now I try to back up the Iphoto folders, but the ap crashes or says could not complete. It hangs after a while. It will not burn a backup (crashes) or export the photos themselves (can't complete). Next I try to copy small amounts of data- less than a gig at a time. Still it craps out.

What can i do except copy 10,000 files - 10 at a time?

Signed,
Stumped.